Tristan Hughes

And that is a beautiful mosaic, obviously from Roman times, but it shows Alexander on the left with his companions.

You see that the straight swords and the spears and then Darius and his charioteer.

Darius looking scared, charioteer with the whip up, causing chaos in his own ranks and he's trying to flee.

But I just love that, you know, you have the written sources, but then you have that mosaic surviving as well.

Shall we finish this episode?

We've done really well in this, doing Granicus and Issus and the early campaign of Alexander in Anatolia.

The last great story attached to Issus, which is the immediate aftermath where Darius has fled east, but he's left his baggage behind.

Which isn't just baggage.

The baggage which is not just objects.

The chivalric Alexander and also, you know, another of those stories that links the closeness of Alexander with Hephaestion, you know, that companion, almost certainly lover as well, saying when they misidentify, they think Hephaestion's Alexander and Alexander going like,

Hephaestion is just as much Alexander as I am.

So it's an interesting one.

But that is the aftermath of Isis, isn't it?

We've only done a year and a half, but packed a lot into it.

The next episode, we're going to explore the road to Babylon and ultimately the road to Afghanistan, because this is another really fascinating period in Alexander's story.

finishing with the Mediterranean and then going deep into the Middle East.

Just the beginning.

Adrian, thank you so much for taking the time to come back on the show for episode two.

Thanks for having me.

That was episode two of our special series about Alexander the Great with the one and only Dr. Adrian Goldsworthy.